Just finished watching Cat People and Curse of the Cat People. They're an interesting pair. The same cast, the same producer and writer, but two very different films, one a psychological horror film with supernatural aspects, the other a more contemplative tale about childhood fantasies. As a pair, they make for some interesting ambiguities. If everything Amy experienced in Curse was her runaway imagination, is it possible that Irena's cat transformations in the former film were really just her own delusions after all? Alternatively, could it be that Irena's ghost really did come to watch over Amy as some sort of redemptive act?
I also wonder about Elizabeth Russell. In the first film, she appeared briefly as the "catlike" Serbian woman who called Irena "sestra" ("sister," as all Orphan Black fans know) -- implicitly one of the witchy cat people Irena believed herself to be one of. (And it's interesting that she looked so much like Julie Newmar.) But in the second, she has a much bigger role as the estranged daughter of the elderly actress, with no evident relation to her role in the first film. If we follow the lead of Curse and assume nothing truly supernatural happened in the former, it doesn't seem likely that Barbara Farren would've been speaking Serbian to a woman she mistook for her sister somehow. Although, conversely, if we assume the first film was real, it's not out of the question that Barbara could be one of the cat people; since she wasn't in a relationship with a man, there was nothing to trigger it. Although she was pretty unhappy, and that was supposed to set it off too, I think. Ahh, I guess it works better if we assume they're unrelated.
One thing I'm not clear on is about the psychiatrist in the first film. What was his motivation for the things he did? Was he just a creep out to take sexual advantage of his patient? Or was he supposed to be sincerely trying to determine the truth of her cat-person nature, in a way that seems creepy in retrospect but wasn't seen that way at the time?
The casting was pretty good in these films. Simone Simon was lovely and effective at being both adorable and eerie (fitting for a cat woman). And Ann Carter was luminous and ethereal as little Amy in the sequel, with a thousand-mile stare that really fit her character. Kent Smith was charming enough in a bland sort of way as Oliver, though he became kind of a jerk to his daughter in the second film, even though it's somewhat understandable given his fears about Amy turning out like Irena. But at least he learned he was being a jerk, once the teacher set him straight.
(I noticed something in these films that I've also noticed in listening to the Superman radio serial from the '40s, which is how progressive and forward-looking America, or at least its media culture, considered itself to be at the time. A lot was still backward compared to today, but there was this sense that they were moving into the future, embracing modern science and medicine and reason and conquering old superstitions and fears -- as in the characters of Cat People embracing psychiatry as a modern solution, or the teacher in Curse talking sense into Ollie by telling him what the books say about how children should be raised. It's almost the template for Star Trek's Federation, this very optimistic and activist society that has utter faith in the triumph of its science and its enlightened attitudes. It's an interesting contrast with today, where we're so technologically advanced and more socially advanced in many ways, but so many people are skeptical of intellectualism and progress and trying to revert to traditional beliefs or ways. In some ways, I see more modernity in those '40s productions than I do in the present day.)
I'm also rather pleased by what, for the time, was a rather progressive portrayal of black characters. The waitress in the first film and Edward the house servant in the second were in traditional roles for the era, but weren't stereotyped or caricatured in their speech or personalities, coming off as well-spoken, likeable people.
Yeah, Queen of Outer Space is definitely a classic B-Movie. Lots of fun.
